IAPA awards shortlist unveiled

2018-01-19T15:37:00+00:00

The shortlist for the 2018 International Awards for Powered Access (IAPAs) has been unveiled.

Jointly hosted by the International Powered Access Federation (IPAF) and Access International, the IAPAs celebrate best practice in the access industry and regularly attract an audience of around 450 industry professionals.

The winners will be announced at a gala dinner, held on the same day as the annual IPAF Summit at the Hilton Miami Downtown in Florida, USA, on 8 March. As usual, the response has been excellent, with more than 100 high-quality entries received across the 13 categories. IPAF and AI would like to thank everyone who took part and encourage those who did not make the shortlist this year to enter again for the 2019 awards.

The announcement of the shortlist follows the judges’ meeting last week in London, UK. As always, the entries were judged by an independent panel of prominent industry experts with long-standing experience in the business.

The entries were judged by an independent panel of prominent industry experts with long-standing experience in the business. They alone decide the winners - recipients of IAPA trophies can therefore be justifiably proud of their achievement.

Recently retired, Chris Bowers served as senior vice president, customer strategy, sales and marketing at US-based NES Rentals from 2005 to 2017 when NES was sold to United Rentals.

Chris Carmolingo

Chris Carmolingo has been regional vice president at BlueLine Rental, in the US, since 2015. Before that he was president and CEO at access specialist Trico Lift.

Ib Steffensen

Ib Steffensen is the director of the lift department at truck mounted platform and crane rental company BMS and a member of its executive board. He has been employed at BMS since 2009 and has been in the rental industry for 25 years.

Nick Selleyis business development director at UK-based access equipment rental company AFI Group and was this year inaugurated as IPAF president.

Nick Selley

Tobias Ritzenhöfer is the director of engineering at Germany-based tracked platform manufacturer Teupen Maschinenbau, which also produces the self propelled extreme off-road Puma lift. Ritzenhöfer has huge experience in the industry and at Teupen, having started at the company in 1996 as an apprentice mechanic.

Tobias Ritzenhöfer

For the 2018 awards there was a change to the two Product of the Year categories for self propelled equipment. They have been updated to: Product of the Year – Self propelled booms and atrium lifts and Product of the Year – Scissors lifts & vertical mast platforms.